Korres

Korres is a Greek beauty company founded in Athens in 1996, built around skincare, body care and other personal-care products made from endemic Greek botanicals. The brand traces its roots to Greece's oldest homeopathic pharmacy, where pharmacist Giorgos Korres worked in the late 1980s before turning a fascination with native Greek herbs into a product line [3]. It is distributed in around 50 countries and is best known for ingredient-led ranges such as its Greek Yoghurt probiotic skincare.

Since 2017 the company has been majority-owned by institutional investors: a Morgan Stanley private-equity fund and the Chinese distributor Profex together hold a 70 percent stake, with the founding family retaining 30 percent [7]. Operations and the brand identity have continued unchanged under that structure.

According to the company, Korres was founded in 1996 by Giorgos Korres, a pharmacist, and Lena Korres, a chemical engineer [3]. The two brought complementary roles to the venture: Giorgos focused on herbal remedies, product design and the idea of showcasing endemic Greek herbs, while Lena drove formulation, sustainability and innovation. The English Wikipedia infobox credits the founding to a single person, Georgios Korres, and describes him as a pharmacist from the island of Naxos [6]; the brand's own account names both Giorgos and Lena Korres as co-founders [3].

The business grew out of a pharmacy setting rather than a laboratory. Korres describes its origin in Greece's oldest homeopathic pharmacy in Athens, where the first products were homeopathic preparations and the founder's interest in native plants took shape. The company frames this apothecary heritage as central to its identity, summed up in the tagline "Greece. Nature. Science."

After its 1996 founding, Korres built out a series of in-house research and production units it refers to as its labs. A Formulation Lab was created in 1999, followed by an Extraction Lab in 2006 designed around no-waste operations, and a Molecular Lab in 2007 dedicated to primary research on plants. The company says this structure lets it control each stage from sourcing to finished product, a principle it describes as taking "absolute responsibility for every single step."

By the late 2010s Korres had expanded well beyond Greece. Trade press reporting at the time of its 2017 investment put the company at roughly €100 million in annual retail sales, with distribution spanning skincare, body care, fragrance and color cosmetics [7]. Wikipedia records that, as of June 2015, it operated stores in ten European countries as well as Singapore and South Korea [6].

In December 2017, Korres announced an investment that transferred majority control to outside owners. Morgan Stanley's North Haven Private Equity Asia took a 56 percent stake and the Chinese cosmetics distributor Profex a further 14 percent, for a combined 70 percent acquired for €48.3 million; the transaction was structured through a holding company, Nissos Holdings, and the Korres family kept the remaining 30 percent [7]. Founder Giorgos Korres stayed on as chairman and continued to manage the company as a minority owner. The deal was tied to expansion into China and Hong Kong through an exclusive distribution agreement with Profex.

Korres positions itself as a natural, Greek skincare brand following what it calls a "Seed to Skin" philosophy — controlling the chain from cultivating botanicals to formulation, packaging and recycling. The company describes its core ethos as "skincare that cares for people, traditions, and the environment," and emphasizes Greece's plant biodiversity, citing a flora of more than 6,000 species, around 1,500 of them endemic.

Sourcing is presented as a community relationship rather than a supply contract. The company says it maintains long-term agreements with local farmers, cooperatives and institutions, with the stated aim of "supporting, not competing with" growers through farming education and investment in rural regions. It states that its proprietary active ingredients come from certified organic plant materials cultivated in Greece, with traceability across the supply chain.

Korres organizes its range around hero Greek ingredients, each anchoring a product family: Greek yoghurt (described as probiotic- and prebiotic-rich), wild rose, black pine, Santorini grape and pure Greek olive [8]. Signature items include the Greek Yoghurt Probiotic Super Serum, the Pure Greek Olive 3-In-1 Nourishing Oil, the Wild Rose Brightening Absolute Oil and the Black Pine Overnight Total Revival Serum; the catalogue also spans body care, suncare, men's care, haircare, makeup and fragrance. Editorial reviews repeatedly single out the Greek Yoghurt line as a signature, best-selling range [8].

The brand backs its formulation work with a set of stated technical claims. It says each product undergoes more than 500 safety and efficacy tests, sometimes with 24 to 36 months of testing for a single formula, and that it maintains a blacklist excluding ingredients such as parabens, silicones, mineral oil and synthetic musks [5]. Its science program includes 22 proprietary plant extracts developed in-house and a patent-pending process it calls KORRES Bioactive Extraction, with scientific oversight from the Agricultural University of Athens [1].

Sustainability is framed as part of the company's production model rather than a separate initiative. Korres says it operates the first fully green, zero-waste extraction unit in Greece and runs a recycling program that converts empty packaging into design objects [1]. It states that it works with dozens of farmer collaborations under long-term agreements and uses pharmaceutical-grade water in production. On ethics, an editorial source quotes the company's stated policy: "We are strictly against animal testing, and do not test any ingredients or products on animals, nor do we hire outside companies to do so for us" [9]. No third-party certifications (such as Leaping Bunny or a vegan certification) were identified among the available sources.

Korres remains an active, globally distributed brand, with a current e-commerce presence, recent product launches and active social media. Its ownership status, however, is no longer independent: since the 2017 transaction the company has been majority-controlled by institutional investors — Morgan Stanley's private-equity fund and Profex — with the founding family holding a 30 percent minority stake [7].